Unity Greeter - By default the 'Other' login option should not be displayed

Hidden in 0.0.6 unless the user list is disabled. Note that it can't have both the username and password at the same time, see bug #844044 for details.

This is a pointless "unbreak my desktop" option. If your machine only has LDAP/NIS logins, or you use PAM modules for fingerprint readers etc., why do you need to configure it? Right now these work out of the box. Worse, for configuring it you actually need to be able to log in; chicken-egg.

What is so bad about having this option? It doesn't get in the way, can be at the bottom of the list. "Other.." might be a poor name and cause confusion, it could perhaps be "Another user.." or "Type user name.."?

If you really want to hide it by default, please do not make it an option, but instead check /etc/nsswitch.conf's "passwd", and show "Other" if it is anything but "compat". If you don't want to miss cases, you'd also need to check the PAM configuration, but it gets really hairy at this point. Checking nsswitch.conf will at least catch the common NIS/LDAP cases.

Also, please note that if you want to land this in oneiric, it requires a FF/UIF exception.

Martin, if the UI has a "manual login" or "other" option will the design then cater for these use cases?

A "manual" login sounds confusing -- it's like the opposite of "automatic login", but all accounts offered in the greeter are manual in that sense.

We have an "other" option right now, so what would change there?

Other option put back into 0.0.7 as temporary solution.

@robert-ancell; updated description with Martin's proposed solution.

On Linux Mint 12, using the following options in the file, /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf

greeter-hide-users=true
allow-guest=false

unity-greeter displays "Other..." at the top, when it should say "Login" because the user list is disabled.
"Other..." has no meaning or purpose here, and to be completely honest it looks very strange.

in unity-greeter.c I see "Other..." mentioned in at least three places. (Lines 598,684,1299)
I'm guessing these could be changed to say "Login" to accomplish what would make some sort of sense.
This particular machine is not using NIS login or card readers, all logins are local but we don't want the list of local user names displayed.

Here is a link to a forum user looking for the same thing, changing "Other..." to "Login" when the user list is disabled.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1858962
<quote>Also is there a way to change 'Other...' to 'Login' when the user listing is disabled?</quote>

Also, if you switch to high-contrast mode, "Other..." is displayed in its normal location, but also, two more times below where you enter a user name,for a total of three "Others..."

Please accept my apologies in advance if all of this is something that is now fixed, but not merged into downstream Mint 12.

Ubuntu 12.04 up to date 03/02/12

Likewise-Open 6.1.0.406-0ubuntu5
Unity-greeter 0.2.0-0ubuntu6
lightdm 1.1.1-0ubuntu4

Likewise is configured for Active Directory logins and the nsswitch.conf file has "compat" and "lsass" in the passwd line however the "Other" option is now present.

I am only able to due directory logins by manually disabling the user list and guest account in lightdm.conf

Sorry that should read "however the "Other" option is *not* present

Well, my LDAP is configured in pam.d and nsswitch passwd field is compat.

Right now, only I can login from our domain (yeah and "guest"). Why does nobody tell the 'designers' what the actual requirements are in the field?

> The 'Other' login option should be disabled by default, and only enabled if /etc/nsswitch.conf's "passwd"
> is anything other than "compat"

Would actually be good to let the user force the "Other" option even if nsswitch is set to compat and even if the user list is not disabled. Something like:

greeter-force-other

That option will allow to catch corner cases (I am in one such corner case :)

The current Unity greeter does not show an "Other..." option. It actually should IMHO, but this is tracked in bug 844044.

@pitti; hi, please don't change the status of bugs in the ayatana-design project, we use this status for our QA process, and changing the status means the resolution of these bugs have skipped the design QA check. thanks!